Family Council Structure: The Various Ways to Organize
Par Family Councils Ontario
Across the province Family Councils are organized in a variety of ways. Each Council is unique and has the ability to operate in a way that meets its members’ needs. Much of the information provided here is found in our Family Council Handbook Your Guide to Starting and Maintaining a Family Council in chapter 4 titled “Maintaining your Council.” The guide is available on the resource section of our website. Regardless of the organizational structure your Council opts for, it should reflect the needs and strengths of your Council, leverage the capacities of your members, and support a strong, successful team.
The Importance of Family-led Councils
Family-led Councils are important to the effective operation of a Council. Councils that are not family-led are missing a major opportunity to become self-determining. Many family members will not speak freely in staff-run meetings. Surveys and experience have shown that staff-run Councils are less active and less attended than family-run councils. Staff-run councils deny families direct responsibility for the work of their Council.
What? No Elections?
A Family Council can function in a democratic way and function well without electing officers. For example, some Councils have volunteers step into time limited roles and these roles can rotate.
In many Councils the choices of willing leaders is limited. Members with more experience may volunteer to take on a leadership role until members get to know each other and have a chance to decide how they will organize themselves.
For any group to function there needs to be some leadership taken. The roles can include, but are not limited to: having a Chair person or a person who will make sure the next meeting happens, prepare an agenda, and lead the meeting; the second important role is having a person record the meeting minutes.
The chair’s role is to plan the agenda which may include a speaker, or staff member presenting on a topic of interest, planning or project discussions, and time for peer support of families. Either a chair or secretary will need to ensure that people are notified about the meeting; for example, getting posters distributed, talking to people, phoning people, and inviting people to the meeting.
The secretary’s role is to write the minutes and then distribute them before the next meeting.
Sharing the Load
Sometimes families will not help run the Council and refuse to take on any Council responsibilities but will continue to attend meetings. Taking on the role of “Chair” or “secretary” may be intimidating but the role doesn’t have to be. A shared model can work where the roles are rotated on a regular basis so no one person feels burdened with work. The rotation can happen bi-monthly, quarterly or as decided by the Council, with people pitching in to lead, plan an agenda, and take the minutes as needed. Being responsible for one or two meetings can seem “doable” while standing for the roles of chairperson or secretary for a longer period is overwhelming. Many Councils have found this rotating of roles to work effectively.
Importance of Volunteers: Many Hands Make Light Work
Jobs can be broken down so that many pitch in and no one person is left doing all of the work- asking members to do small jobs helps everyone get involved, from meeting announcements to leading the meeting. For example, for meeting announcements someone can make the poster, another can get it printed off, another can post it up – all small jobs that everyone can help with and each job doesn’t take a lot of time. Other members can invite families to the meeting when they see other families in the Home or perhaps by phoning people to remind them of the meeting. A member could take on a small regular task, for example making sure that new families are welcomed by talking to new families and telling them about the Family Council.
A More Formal Approach
Some Councils depend on a more formal structure and have yearly elections for the leadership roles that can include, but are not limited to: Chair, vice chair, and secretary.
The Chair is expected to lead and facilitate meetings, plan agendas, and take on the responsibility of making sure the meeting happens. Even if that person doesn’t do all the preparations themselves they make sure it all takes place.
The Secretary makes sure the minutes are done and distributed in a timely manner taking confidentiality into consideration.
Some Councils have additional elected officers and create executive committees.
Elections, no matter what roles the Council has decided to have, should be well planned and the process involves several steps. We are going to devote a Blog post to how to have an effective election process.
Pros and Cons of Informal vs. Formal Structure
Whichever approach to leadership the Council takes each has its own benefits and cautions.
An informal approach can led to difficulties with Council turn over. When many members leave it may be difficult to keep things moving for the Council if no one steps forward as a volunteer. Considering this in planning would be very important. However, the benefit of an informal structure is that everyone has to be involved without any one person running the Council. Carefully considering succession planning will help ensure the success of an informal structure.
Having a more formal structure can help with succession planning so when there is turnover of Council membership there are plans in place to keep the Council functioning. The caution is that many times the leadership takes over and forgets to involve the Council members in decision making. It is easy for Council members to just sit back and let the elected leaders do it all. In the planning of a formal structure care needs to be taken to find ways of involving all Council members.
The importance of Review and Remodeling
Councils must talk about their organization and review their effectiveness on a regular basis. We suggest that this happen once a year but due to a large turnover of members it can be done as often as needed. A structure that was working may not be working now and the Council needs to discuss how to move forward. It is perfectly OK to revisit how the Council is operating to ensure it is meeting the needs of the current members.
Check out the Resources FCO Has to Help!
The most important point in all of this is to make sure all Council members understand and agree on how to operate. The FCO website and Family Council Handbook are great resources for further ideas on ways to maintain your Council. Register for one of our Terms of Reference webinars and visit our Facebook page (be sure to “like” us or post a comment) and website!